Friday, July 08, 2005

World Series of Waah

Have to say that I definitely agree with the general blogger sentiment, that goes something roughly like "Waah, damnit, waah, what the hell am I doing here while the WSOP is going on? Waah..." Do I feel like I belong there? Umm, no, not really. Does that stop me from stomping around, red-faced, threatening to hold my breath, until I pass out and crack my head on a desk leg? Nope, doesn't stop me for a single second.

While part of me wishes I'd thrown more money at some satellites, most of me is glad I didn't. I need to remove scared money from the equation, as far as larger buy-in tournaments, and I'm nowhere near the point of being able to do that subtractive math successfully yet.

I'd be lying, though, if I said I didn't have plans for 2006. 'Cause I do. 'Cause I'm the sort of monkey that likes plans. Especially pokery plans. Mmm, pokery...

It's a bit of a der moment, but a few things clicked last night, when I was working on assorted projects, playing a little poker, and refreshing Pauly's WSOP blog every ten minutes. I've worked pretty hard in the past to segregate poker from other things, as far as finances (separate bankroll, separate checking account) and in a general life sense as well. I don't have a lot of free time to play poker in, so I generally cram table time in when I can, then run off to accomplish some other assorted task. The whole married thing continues to go really well, so I seem to be handling that fine. My day job is a completely mindless, numbing pursuit devoid of any iota of future ambition or development, but it pays pretty well, considering what I actually am required to do. The business ventures I run in the side continue to do pretty freakishly well, considering the somewhat minimal time I have to devote to them. All in all, everything's in its own respective box and, by and large, playing nicely with one another when there's any overlap.

And that's worked fine, to a large extent. But I think I'm reaching a point where I have to start looking at poker in a more serious light, especially as it relates to the business stuff, of all things. Too often I end up begrudging the time I spend playing poker, or, conversely, the time I spend working on assorted business projects, when I could be playing poker. Which is natural, but a little backwards, in the grand scheme of things. Profits from a successful business can pay for a buy-in to a tournament in exactly the same way poker profits can. If anything, due to the enormous variance involved in playing tournaments, it's almost preferable to not have to rely on your own poker play to fund you, at least not entirely. It's not very surprising that a majority of the people you see at final tables, even current pros, also own or have owned a successful business in the past.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that business goals can be poker goals, too, and that scaling assorted poker mountains doesn't have to be limited to reading, studying, and playing poker successfully.